Between the day when the mainland university entrance exam results were
released and June 30, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong Science and Technology
University, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong Lingnan University and
the Hong Kong Institute of Education have been conducting interviews in
Guangzhou and Shenzhen. About 500 students have participated in these
interviews.

On June 30, the Hong Kong Science and Technology University held
interviews at the Intercontinental Hotel in Guangzhou, with the following
minimum scores from the mainland university entrance exam: 625 for the
School of Physics, 630 for the School of Engineering, 624 for the School of
Business, 624 for double major and 655 for the School of Humanities.

Here are some of the questions that were asked of the students:

What is your view on the "Runner Fan" issue?

If you were the Premier of China, how would you handle the pollution
problem?

What are the direct and indirect effects of the Olympics on China?

Does CNN's Jack Cafferty have the right to criticize China over the
Tibet issue?

What roles did the reporters play in the Wenchuan earthquake?

[036] Signal-To-Noise
Ratio (06/30/2008) With respect to the Weng'an mass incident, I
have so far translated the following versions:

There is plenty more versions, variations and recombinations out there.
Out of these versions arise two interesting phenomena. They are not
necessarily new, but they are quite apparent this time.

The first phenomenon has to do with hydrological engineering. Yes,
HYDROLOGICAL ENGINEERING! Many of the current crop of central government
leaders are technocrats with engineering background. As such, they must
understand that public opinion is water that can carry the ship as well as
turn it over. The point about hydrological engineering is not to build
dams to hold the water back because there will be a catastrophic dam break one
day that might bring down the entire system. Instead, the point should
be about controlling and redirecting the awesome power of nature in less
harmful ways down selected channels.

In the case of the Weng'an mass incident, the major portals were deleting
the related posts as quickly as possible. At Tianya
Forum, it was estimated that a Weng'an-related post has an average
lifetime of 15 seconds before being deleted by the administrators. That
was supposed to be a record speed. The same thing was happening at
Sina.com, Sohu.com, Baidu, etc. So this was building massive dams all
over the map which builds up a tremendous pressure. Where was the
pressure release point? You may be amazed that it was over at the
Xinhua Forum. The webmasters posted the official Xinhua news
story on the forum. That does not help in itself because Chinese
netizens think that this Xinhua story was vague and misleading. However,
the webmasters allowed the comments to run freely. This meant that the
Xinhua posts became the meeting points of all those who want to talk about the
Weng'an incident but could not do so elsewhere. Although that post did
not contain any news information (such as photos and videos), it was a place
for people to vent their outrage. As a result, Xinhua got a
record-setting number of visitors who were very appreciative. Is this
the plan for the future? You'll find out at the next mass incident (and
there will be many).

The second phenomenon was the amount of noisy chaff released. On one
hand, there is the legendary "50-cent gang." These are supposed to be
professional Internet writers who get paid 0.50 RMB for every post favorable
to the government position. When yet another version of the Weng'an mass
incident gets published as being the ultimate truth, the author is accused of
being a member of the "50-cent gang" who is trying to confuse the public.
Indeed, if you read through enough versions, you will probably throw up your
hands and decide that you don't know what the truth is anymore. Instead,
you change your investigation to questioning the motives of the people who are
producing these versions.

On the other hand, there is the legendary "Internet special agent (网特)."
These are supposed to be professional spies who are paid by anti-China hostile
forces to publish unfavorable information about China. For example, some
of the posts mentioned that the People's Liberation Army has been dispatched
to Weng'an with tanks and artillery, with the hint of a Tiananmen-like
massacre to follow. Immediately, the other netizens reacted by pointing
that these posts are coming from "Internet special agents." The netizens
want to draw a very clear line: they may be protesting against what is
happening in Weng'an but they will not serve the purpose of the anti-China
hostile forces. This is very clear.

[035] Yet Another
Another Version of the Weng'an Mass Incident (06/30/2008) (DWnews)

Today, I read a Xinhua report which was vague and misleading. I
have heard the story from a fellow student who was an eyewitness.

The dead female students was a Form 3 student attending the Weng'an
County Number Three Middle School in Yuhua town, Weng'an county, Guizhou
province. To study at the school, she rented a room near the gas
station on the north side of the county city.

This female student took her middle school exams this year with excellent
results. She died for a reason that you may find it unimaginable --
during the exams, she refused to let three male students copy her answers.
In revenge, the three male students raped her and then pushed her into the
Simen river where she drowned.

That night, people tried to locate her body but they were unsuccessful.
The next day, the police retrieved the body and arrested the three
murderers. But one of them has family connections. When the body
was brought out of the river, there were many spectators. The parents
of the murderer called a certain department head at the Guizhou provincial
level, and this person then issued an order. The next day, the Weng'an
county police released the three murderers. This was how the mass
incident got started, so that the police had to scramble on top of the roof
while the masses aimed firecrackers at them. My fellow students asw
more than two dozen police vehicles vandalized and set on fire. Even
the fire truck got vandalized.

An additional point was that the female student was not murdered by
another female student. The three male murderers asked another female
student to get the victim to come out. The parents of the murderer
addressed the department heard as "Department head Jiang."

My fellow student said that the police did not do anything wrong in terms
of how they handled the matter. The main issue was with "Department
head Jiang." Such was the immediate assessment by my fellow student
based upon his personal experience. But since then, the police
had taken the wrong actions during the long confrontation.

So far, family elders have been assaulted. It is not true that
family relatives were beaten to death. Also, it is not true that the
victim was murdered by another female student named Wang Jiao. It is
not true that the victim was gang-raped by the son of the deputy county
mayor and associates. If someone has to be investigated, it is
"department head Jiang."

Yesterday morning, the Shaanxi provincial government held a press
conference to announce the results of the investigation about the South
China tiger photos. For the first time, the authorities acknowledged
that the tiger photos were faked by filming the tiger from a wall calendar.
It was also announced that the photographer Zhou Zhenglong has been arrested
for fraud and that thirteen government officials from the provincial
forestry department and Zhenping town have been disciplined. Among
those officials were the stalwart "pro-tiger" characters Zhu Julong, Guan Ke
and Li Qian who were either relieved, demoted or dismissed from their jobs.
Once again, public discussion about the tiger photos has been re-ignited,
and these officials had no compunction about reacting immediately. But
their latest words were not apologies, for they showed no humility or shame.
This showed the other disturbing aspect of this affair.

The public responses from the officials involved in the tiger photo
forgery case carried a tone of absurdity. Shortly after the press
conference was concluded, the press caught up with Zhu Julong. This
former deputy director of the Shaanxi provincial forestry department was
driving to lunch and his reaction to his punishment was: "I am now going to
live a happy life which I will happily enjoy." The former forestry
department information minister Guan Ke was a stalwart "pro-tiger" point man
who blogged many times to rebut the critics. This time, he only said
mildly: "My passion exceeded my rationality." Zhenping town forestry
department director Jia Dapeng was given an administrative demerit and will
be referred to the county people's congress for dismissal. His
reaction was: "I will obey the decision of the Party and the people."

The good thing is that the words and actions of these officials over the
past eight months are on record. Their boastfulness and hypocrisy
cannot be glossed over lightly today. They accepted the fake tiger
photos, they backed up Zhou Zhenglong in the face of public doubt and they
even offered guarantees with their jobs. Zhu Julong was certainly an
important player. Guan Ke was still defending the faked photos on the
day before yesterday and accused people of smearing a photographer-hero.
Other officials also joined to establish the "legend" of the tiger photo
through their roles in the scientific investigation, field inspection,
verification and award-giving.

This affair was a shameful matter known inside and outside of China.
A small number of officials ignored science, commonsense and broiling public
opinion to toy with the public trust. When the collective wisdom of
the people stripped away the new clothes of the emperor, they persisted with
their lies and used the power of the bureaucracy to prevent the truth from
coming out. But now the authorities have followed what the public has
already done and easily determined that the tiger photos were fake.
Strangely enough, now that the tiger photos have been discredited, these
officials are not showing any uneasiness and they are apparently indifferent
to the sanctions imposed on them. It is certainly a strange phenomenon
when public servants make no apologies for creating scandals or otherwise
excuse their lies as professional zeal.

The Shaanxi government has posited that the tiger photos were faked by
Zhou Zhenglong on his own without the participation of any public servants.
This positioning separates Zhou from the government officials. In
other words, the officials may be incompetent, but they were not
co-conspirators. The question is just how this daring and sly citizen
can get away with the poorly forged photos and obtained the endorsement of
so-called professional experts and government officials? Against the
calls from society, the officials in the forestry department went their own
way. In retrospect, it was clear that they did so because the penalty
is limited. So as long as you defend the interests of your department,
you will be protected.

We don't know the full inside story behind the forgery, but we can see
the hidden rules in action. Among the officials involved in the tiger
photo affair, Zhenping country wildlife preservation station director Li
Ping believed that the South China tiger is extinct and refused to
participate in this farce of the "South China tiger economy." As a
result, he received a completely different cold treatment: he was kept away
from officialdom and stayed idle at home. Li Ping and the lying
officials belong to the same system, and the truth-teller gets ostracized.
So it is easy to imagine how the lying arrogant bureaucratic culture
proliferate.

To a certain extent, the investigative results of the Shaanxi provincial
government have corrected the wrong tendencies among certain officials.
Regrettably, this is just half the story. The other half of the story
may never be known and can only be filled in by imagination. The
Shaanxi government interpreted the case as fraud, but the affair is really
revealing the problems in officialdom and the public's worries about those
problems.

(1) The uncle of the female student was alleged to have been beaten by
the police and later died at the hospital. He is still alive, but in
critical condition. He is interviewed by Hong Kong Cable in this
YouTube Video:
香港有线电视台29号贵州瓮安

(2) There were reportedly four attempts by unidentified men to snatch the
body of the female student. Alternately, the body of the female
student was given a quick autopsy in which her internal organs were removed
to destroy the evidence. In fact, the body is still resting in a
refrigerated coffin by the river awaiting an autopsy.

[032] Yet Another
Version of the Weng'an Mass Incident (06/30/2008) (Boxun)

The name of the female student victim was Li Shufen. She was 15
years old and she was a resident of Yuhua town. At around 6pm on June
21, Li Shufen was asked to go out by her classmate Wang Jiao. Li was
raped by two young men who killed her and tossed her body into the Simen
river. At some time past 11pm that night, some people heard cries for
help. At around 12:30am, Wang Jiao called the elder brother of Li
Shufen to report that Li Shufen "had committed suicide by jumping into the
river."

Li Shufen's elder brother and others went down by the river and saw Wang
Jiao standing by the bridge with two men. They found that there was no
water in Li's stomach. Given that Li had given no indication of
suicidal tendency, they took the three people down to the police station.
But at 10am the next morning, the three people were released unconditionally
without any interrogation or statement-taking. The police also said
that the victim had died by "suicide."

The next day, someone told the relatives of Li Shufen that she had been
raped, killed and thrown into the river. The police did not conduct an
autopsy and ignored the request from the family to do so. Based upon
information provided by local citizens, the Li family found out that Wang
Jiao and the two young men were related to the leaders of the county
public security bureau, county party committee and provincial party
committee. That was why they were released after being detained only
eight hours.

On Monday, the forensic doctor said that the cause of death was
'suicide.' The family went to petition at the country party committee
office. Li Shufen's uncle who is a teacher at the Yuhua Middle School
was assaulted by six plainclothes security guards and subsequently died from
the injuries. Li Shufen's aunt was also beaten unconscious.
Meanwhile, the parents of Li Shufen guarded the coffin by the Simen river.

According to the godfather of Li Shufen, "The public security bureau sent
out people to try to steal the corpse to force a quick interment. When
the family relatives refused, they were assaulted. The country mayor
and the public security bureau all wanted a quick interment. Many
people are on the site ready to defend the corpse. The corpse had been
retrieved from the water by the family, but the public security bureau
wanted them to say that the fire department retrieved it."

This tragic incident has aroused the anger of the local residents.
The students from four Weng'an middle schools went down to the public
security office to petition. The police used force to suppress them,
which caused the students and other citizens to set fire to the public
security bureau office and more than a dozen police vehicles. The
police officers were trapped in the office building, and police
reinforcements had to be summoned from elsewhere.

According to Mrs. Liu: "The students went to the government office with
protest banners but nobody paid them any attention. Then they went
down to the public security bureau building, where the police attacked them
with electric prods. The students and the supporting citizens set fire
to the dozens of police vehicles as well as the offices."

On this day, several tens of thousand of citizens assembled and protested
in front of the public security bureau office, the county government
building and the Civic Affairs Bureau building. They set fire to the
public security, county government and county party committee buildings.

Mr. Wang who participated in the action said, "The county mayor and the
public security bureau director were all in hiding. Several hundred
anti-riot policemen were stuck in the building and did not dare to come out.
The fire department people were blocked by the people from going in to put
out the fires. This time, they saw the power of the people. They
learned that when people are not afraid to die, then death cannot be used to
threaten them!"

[ESWN Comment: The story above is unverified. Nevertheless this is
the most popular story spread around the Internet. A competitive
alternative with the rape angle has Wang Jiao taking revenge because Li Shufen
refused to pass tips to her during an exam. The big problem
here is this.

First, it is known from the photos and videos that a mass incident had
occurred in Weng'an county.

Secondly, all mainstream media have been ordered to carry the Xinhua
story:

According to the local police, on the afternoon of June 28, certain
people were dissatisfied with the inquest on the cause of death for a female
students and congregated at the county government and public security bureau
offices. During the process of reception by the relevant government
officials, certain people instigated the masses who did not know the truth
to attack the county public security bureau, county government and county
party offices. A small number of criminal elements vandalized the
offices and set fire to many offices and vehicles.

Afterwards, the principal leaders of the Guiyang provincial party
committee and government issued orders for the matter to be quickly and
properly handled. Guiyang provincial Party Standing Committee member,
Politics and Law Committee secretary and Public Security Bureau director Cui
Yadong arrived at the scene to direct the local party committee and
government to calm things down. At around 2am on June 29, the
spectators slowly dispersed and the incident did not become bigger.
Calm has basically been restored in Weng'an county.

The Xinhua story does not satisfy the need to know the truth. It
only created many more doubts. This opened up the space for all sorts
of rumors to dominate public opinion which cannot be fully blocked anymore
at this time.

The photos of the Hainan Normal University female students were posted on
June 24, but the user ID was locked and the photos were deleted quickly
before they spread. The police then came in to investigate. A
certain reporter named Zhao at Hainan Net published this as headline news
which was then carried by the big portals together with some alleged photos.

As Hainan Normal University students, we were puzzled by the photos.
In the photo below, the color of the door is wrong. There are also
wooden desks and chairs in the room.

But the furniture in our dormitories consists of a bed on top of the
desk.

We called up the reporter named Zhao who said that this was a file photo.
We found this unacceptable. When anyone sees the news photo, they
would think that this was one of the secretly taken photo from Hainan Normal
University. But the truth was that the real photos never leaked out.
In order to meet people's desire for titillation, the reporter found some
other photo. This hurts the innocent female student victims, and it
also misleads the readers.

[030] Weng'an Is A
Sensitive Word (06/29/2008) For background, see Mass Incident in Weng'an. Subsequently,
netizens have been posting to the forums in order to draw attention but their
posts are being deleted almost as quickly. The following is a screen
capture of the Tianya
Miscellaneous Chat page at 17:03 on June 29. 15 out of the 20
posts are related to the Weng'an mass incident. Some of the titles involve
subtle distortions of the banned term "Weng'an." For example, the first
item says that oveseas media are paying a great of attention of the lives of
people living in the plateau of the Yunnan-Guizhou area. The second item
says that the people of X'an (Guizhou) are lighting an extra large sacred flame
to celebrate the Beijing Olympics. The third item just says, "Delete
this!! Your mother's c*nt!" The fourth item says that "when the army
arrives in southwestern China, I think something big will happen! I
believe that our troops have conscience." The fifth item says that the
anti-American posts from the anti-American warriors have all met death -- the
revolution has not yet succeeded and our comrades need to keep working.
What was that last one? The term "American" is being used for "Chinese"!

At 10pm on June 29, the Shaanxi provincial government held a press
conference to announce that the South China tiger photos taken by Zhou
Zhenglong were forgeries based upon a photo that appeared in a calendar.
The photos were actually taken from a distance between 3.9 meters and 10.5
meters, which confirmed the challenge from a botanist about the size of the
'tiger' relative to the tree leaves. Last September, Zhou Zhenglong
asked a fellow villager to find a photo of a tiger. On September 27, he
went into the mountains to take photos. But the quality of the
photographs were poor. On October 3, he borrowed two high-end cameras
from the town's director of the Economy and Trade Department and went out to
take photos at around 4:30pm.

In April of this year, Zhou Zhenglong continued his confidence game by
taking photos of tiger tracks which were based upon a wooden mould that he
created himself. Zhou was recently summoned for interrogation. At
first, he insisted that the tiger was real. When confronted by the
physical evidence, he finally confessed.

Left: Zhou Zhenglong's photo.
Right: Police's photo at the site using the confiscated portrait

Zhou Zhenglong had received 20,000 RMB in reward money. As such, he
will be charged with fraud. Along with him, 13 government officials
received administrative sanctions including warnings and dismissals.
Most prominent were two defenders of the South China tiger.

Guan Ke was the director of the Shaanxi provincial Forestry Department
Information Center. Based upon his personal experience with photography,
he made a simple study of the photos and hastily declared the tiger and the
photos to be authentic. During the period of social debate over the
issue, Guan Ke violated organizational discipline and established a personal
blog to participate in the debate. This was a serious violation of
discipline. As a result, Guan Ke has been administratively removed from
his job.

Zhu Julong was the deputy director of the Shaanxi provincial Forestry
Department in charge of wildlife care. He received the report and failed
to order a scientific evaluation of the photos or dispatch technicians to the
field. As such, he has direct responsibility as the supervisor in
charge. As a result, he has been given an administrative demerit.
The Shaanxi provincial government has also decided to relieve him as deputy
director of the Shaanxi provincial Forestry Department.

Rioters torched a police building and vehicles in southwest China on
Saturday, in unrest triggered by allegations of a cover-up over a girl's
death, according to Chinese accounts on the Internet. The reports of
the clash in Weng'an County, Guizhou province, could not be immediately
verified and government and police did not answer phone calls in the early
hours of Sunday. But the accounts spreading on the Internet, despite China's
state censorship, depicted a violent outburst involving thousands of people
and lasting several hours.

Residents were enraged by allegations that police had ignored a family's
claim that their 15-year old daughter, whose body was found in a river a
week ago, appeared to have been raped and possibly murdered, the accounts
said. Blogs linked to the popular Sina.com Chinese website (www.sina.com.cn)
showed pictures of thousands of people surrounding a police headquarters,
riot police guarding the burning shell of the building, and burnt and
overturned police vehicles.

The reports come as China seeks to quell any unrest ahead of the Beijing
Olympic Games in August. President Hu Jintao has said ensuring stability is
a top priority ahead of the Games.

The accounts said a youth alleged to have attacked the girl may have been
the son of a senior county official or police officer. "Without
conducting a full autopsy, the police believed the girl committed suicide by
jumping in a river, and they did not take mandatory measures against the
suspect and ignored the family's call for a full autopsy," said one account.
"This drew the anger of the family and public and later sparked this
conflict."

Repeated calls to the Weng'an County Public Security Bureau were not
answered or did not connect, and calls to the county government were not
answered after midnight on Saturday. State media carried no reports of the
incident. Some Internet reports said school students were at the
forefront of the unrest in the poor, mountainous region.

Chinese websites quickly removed many messages about the incident, but
others remained accessible. "I hope that the Internet will be able to
swiftly oversee the government in uncovering the truth as soon as possible
and delivering justice to the family," said one message.

A police station and a county government office building
in southwest China's Guizhou Province were assaulted and torched by local
people Saturday night, official sources said. The chaos started in Weng'an
county seat Saturday afternoon when people who were dissatisfied with the
medicolegal expertise on the death of a local girl student gathered at the
county government and public security bureau, police said. When
officials were handling the case, some people who did not know about the
exact context of what had happened were instigated to mob the police station
and the office buildings of the county government and Communist Party
committee. They smashed and torched many offices and some cars, police
said. Provincial public security chief Cui Yadong, who is also member
of the standing committee of the provincial Communist Party committee,
rushed to the scene to help quiet down the incident. By 2 a.m. Sunday, the
county seat was gradually resuming order while lookers-on began to disperse.

(Ming Pao;
anti-CNN.com;
Qbar) (Warning:
Unconfirmed, conflicting stories are being circulated on the Internet, but
those photos do not lie)

The son of the Weng'an county deputy mayor and another youth raped and
killed a 15-year-old female middle school student named Li Shufei (李树菲) and
then tossed her body into the Ximen river aferwards. The police
detained the suspects for five hours and released them without charge.
The police said that the girl had committed suicide by leaping into the
river. The relatives of the girl went to complain to the police.
Instead of getting justice, the relatives were assaulted. An uncle of
the girl was beaten unconscious and eventually died. The uncle was a
teacher himself, and his students went to demonstrate down at the police
station. It seems as if the entire population of the county are
outside the public security bureau office building.

CNN's designated Olympic torch relay runner made a sudden U-turn
yesterday by announcing he would not run in the Beijing leg after all.
Beijing bureau chief Jaime FlorCruz said he would give up his place and
offer it to "any member" of the Sichuan earthquake rescue and relief
operations. The pullout comes just a week after he said he was
honoured to have been chosen to carry the torch when it returns to the
capital on August 6.

"My daughter Michelle and I are happy and honoured to have been selected
as torch-bearers in the ongoing Olympic relay," he said. "However,
only Michelle will be running in the relay. I wish to offer my slot to
someone who has made extraordinary contributions during the earthquake
rescue and relief operations, in any field."

The veteran China journalist, a Philippine national, bore the brunt of
China's wrath after commentator Jack Cafferty's now infamous "goons and
thugs" remark made on a political programme on April 9. FlorCruz was
summoned by the Foreign Ministry for an angry dressing down after CNN's
initial apology failed to appease. It finally accepted an apology
after a letter was presented last month by CNN president Jim Walton to
China's ambassador to the United States.

Q: Thousands of media reporters rushed from inside and outside of
China to cover the Wenchuan earthquake. You are the deputy chief
editor at Hong Kong's <Ming Pao> in charge mainland China reporting.
Please tell us about how <Ming Pao> and other Hong Kong media covered the
earthquake.Zhang Xu: The first of our colleagues departed from the office to the
disaster area at around 3pm on May 12 (note: the earthquake occurred at
2:28pm). My colleagues went via separate routes. Some headed
towards the Hong Kong International Airport, while others went to the
Shenzhen Airport. All of them went to Chongqing and then they traveled
overnight to Chengdu. When my colleagues left the office, they had
never heard of Wenchuan yet. They only knew that they were supposed to
go to Sichuan province. On the way, we spelled out the name of
Wenchuan for them. On the first day, we dispatched four persons.
But it was only when the third-ladder team went out that they carried
satellite telephones. We sent sixteen person/occasions in total.
On the first day after the earthquake (May 13), we published five full pages
in the newspaper. The maximum ever was ten pages, but basically we had
between eight to ten pages on the average. In terms of sheer quantity,
we had more than other Hong Kong newspapers. But I feel that the Hong
Kong media were basically similar in terms of timeliness and content.
I should say that this was the biggest project that <Ming Pao> undertook
since the late 1980's.

Q: We noticed that <Ming Pao> used the frontline reporters of Hong
Kong television media as their sources. Does this mean that the print
media are disadvantaged against the television media during the competitive
coverage of this earthquake?A: First of all, the Hong Kong television media really did a better job
this time. Earthquake news is better suited for television, because
the visuals are so rich. They also invested huge amounts of people and
resources. I heard that TVB spent HK$2 million on telephone bills
alone. Their reporters have greater vigor and they gave us many tips,
references and information.
Actually, the advantage of the television media over print media in Hong
Kong had shown itself before this earthquake. The print media have
been under pressure for some time before that. In fact, it is normal
for the Hong Kong newspapers to trail televised news. This is a big
concern because many Hong Kong newspapers are exploring what to do for the
future. The consensus is that we have to have in-depth analytical and
interpretive reporting in order to survive.

Q: How do you view the performances of the mainland media, including
CCTV, the Xinhua agency, the market-oriented media and the new Internet
media with respect to earthquake coverage? A: Generally speaking, we feel that the mainland media have been quite
open, especially the reaction and reporting of the "mouthpieces" CCTV and
Xinhua. In terms of timeliness and depth, this was the best in our
memory. This time, the market-oriented media and the new media may
have been outshone by the central or 'mouthpiece' media, because the latter
had blanket coverage with unmatchable resources. I watched the
coverage on CCTV every day but I cannot remember the name of a single
reporter. That is because they have so many reporters out there, with
each reporter backed up by a film crew behind him/her. You can imagine
how much resource they had. If there should ever be full open
competition, the official media cannot be ignored.

Q: Among the aforementioned media, which was the most memorable report
or televised episode for you?A: My deepest impression was about the televised scenes with Premier Wen
Jiabao, including his conversation with the disaster victims by the ruins
and his dialogue with the orphan girl. I think that they left a deep
impression with the people of Hong Kong, and not just myself.
In addition, there is a certain media person of uncertain affiliation who
published a QQ session
in the first person on his personal blog under the nickname Qimeng.
This person is likely to be a member of the media entourage of Premier Wen
Jiabao. At this time, we do not know if the blog post is true or not.
But it drew widespread attention in Hong Kong at the time. On the day
after, <Ming Pao> and other media quoted this chat session. We said
that there was a Sina.com blog post from a media reporter and we published
it as is.

Recently at the Hainan Normali University, more than 100 female students
found photos of themselves taken in the dormitory were posted onto the
Internet. On June 23, some students found almost 200 secretly taken
photos at the Xiaonei.com website. Most of the photos show students
washing up in their underwear or changing their clothes. Some of the
photos showed quite a bit of flesh in addition to the faces. On June
24, almost 300 more photos were posted in the afternoon, including some that
were taken that very morning. More than 40 female students have been
victimized.

Yesterday, the Hainan police entered the case. All the photos have
now been deleted and three male university students were detained. The
police also worked with the Internet Monitoring Bureau to obtain all the
user IDs involved in uploading the photos, as well as the number of hits
(note: the severity of the crime depends on the potential social impact).

At the university cafeteria, there is a notice from the security office
and the student affairs office in which 20,000 RMB is offered for
information leading to the apprehension of those responsible.

According to the police, "they have processed the photos technically and
therefore the photos will not be present at any website." In practice,
that is impossible without human inspection. Thus the photos can still
be easily found today. The following photo was the one used by the
mainstream newspapers.

[024] Taiwan By The
Numbers (06/28/2008) (TVBS)
(837 persons age 20 or over were interviewed by telephone. Telephone
numbers were randomly selected from the telephone directory, and then the last
four digits were randomized)

Q1. Do the Nationalist Party (Kuomingtang) and the Democratic
Progressive Party value public opinion?

Blue=Nationalist (Kuomintang), Green=Democratic Progressive Party; horizontal
axis are year/month (with the year being dated from 1911,
or the year of birth of the Republic of China)

Q2. Do you think that the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) and the Democratic
Progressive Party are clean (i.e. not corrupt)?

[Q3, Q4, Q5 and Q6 are about vitality, reform, unity and self-reflection
and can be found by clicking on the link.]

Q7. How satisfied are you with the performance of the Nationalist (KMT)
party over the past month as the ruling party?
3%: Very satisfied
27%: Somewhat satisfied
27%: Somewhat dissatisfied
29%: Very dissatisfied
13%: No opinion

Q8. How satisfied are you with the performance of the Democratic
Progressive Party in monitoring the government over the past month?
6%: Very satisfied
31%: Somewhat satisfied
28%: Somewhat dissatisfied
21%: Very dissatisfied
14%: No opinion

This is the worst case scenario for the upcoming Legislative Council
election, as provided by anonymous pan-democrat member(s) of the Hong Kong
Legislative Council. The numbers are for the seats held presently and
the seats in the upcoming election by district:

Hong Kong Island: 4 seats now, 2 seats next

Kowloon East: 3 seats now, 2 seats next

Kowloon West: 3 seats now, 2 seats next

New Territories East: 4 seats now, 4 seats next

New Territories West: 5 seats now, 4 seats next

Functional Constituencies: 7 seats now, 2 seats next

TOTAL: 26 seats now, 16 seats next

Why are these guesstimates being published? That's because Apple
Daily has been running a steady campaign to get Anson Chan to run again in the
Hong Kong Island Legco election. The calculus is that if Anson Chan is
in the race, then it would help to win four seats because of her name appeal.
But if she declines to run, all sorts of other no-name pan-democrats would
enter the race and dilute the vote.

[022] RTHK Advocates
Taiwan Independence? (06/27/2008) (Oriental
Daily) The beleaguered RTHK finds itself in even greater trouble
as someone spotted that a simple map of China did not include Taiwan:

At the RTHK website, a map of China did not include Taiwan. This
led to many National People's Congress and Communist Party Political
Consultative Conference members to denounce RTHK for promoting separatism.

The RTHK spokesperson said that the map of China was merely symbolic and
did not deliberately exclude Taiwan from China. RTHK is trying to
understand what had happened, and will make any corrections as quickly as
possible.

Previously in 1999, RTHK had arranged for the Taiwan representative in
Hong Kong to discuss Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui's "theory of two
nations." Nine years later, it is making the same mistake.

Taiwan has always been regarded as an inseparable part of China.
But in the RTHK programme, the red map of China did not include Taiwan under
the slogan of "Strength transmits strength, life ignites life."

Hong Kong Legislative Council member Tsoi So-yuk emphasized that Taiwan
belongs to China but the official channel of the Hong Kong government RTHK
still committed this huge error. She emphasized that she will ask at
the Legislative Council about whether RTHK has ulterior political motives in
so doing.

At 9am, the mildly obese LEX wearing a pair of sunglasses entered his
office with a notebook computer in hand. He sat down in front of the
computer and he opened up the Tianya Forum webpage titled <Please help me
find this person." LEX scanned through the comments: "I don't think
that this is in Beijing, but I offer my support," "The person's telephone
begins with 587 and the background appears to be a high school in Changsha.
This person has a good friend named Fan." After scanning through the
page, LEX fund three useful clues and he forwarded the information to the
Human Flesh Search Engine's administrator's page.

Then he began a new search and he saw a post titled "Looking for a
laundry detergent girl." He posted the contents to his own QQ account
and cross-posted to the other big forums. He pounded the keyboard to
enter the relevant keywords into Baidu. Then he heard his boss's
footsteps from behind. So he immediately flicked the computer back to
work-related matters. During the whole morning, LEX went back to his
page every 30 to 60 minutes and checked the responses. This is the
basic requirement for a "human flesh search engine."

At 5pm, LEX got off work and went to a teahouse with wifi service.
He grabbed a bite to eat and then he checked the responses to the "Laundry
detergent girl." "The laundry detergent looked to be from Fujian
province." LEX immediately picked up this piece of information and
forwarded it to his QQ group. Immediately, his QQ friends began to
provide him with lists of friends in Fujian. Finally, someone wrote:
"This person is in Fujian." By 9pm, LEX had obtained a satisfactory
outcome.

LEX explained by pointing to the laundry detergent in the photo: "There
does not appear to be anything of value in this photo. But if you
magnify the photo, you can see that the detergent is produced in Fujian
province. LEX called a friend in Fujian, and confirmed within minutes
that this was the case.

LEX then posted the information to the Fujian forum of one the major
websites. Thirty minutes later, he checked again and saw that many
people have commented. LEX selected one comment titled "This could be
a school" and then made another post. As this went of, the scope of
the search narrowed. The "human flesh search engines" come from all
walks of life and they each have their individual strengths. Some are
good at telecommunications and they can retrieve the telephone numbers;
others are strong with observational skills and they can analyze photos;
still others have analytical skills and they can collate the data.

The search process is actually a continuous process of error-correction
because incorrect clues can mislead the human flesh search engines.
For example, if the goal is to track down a school, the convenor may post
the photo to the QQ group from which many proposals would come. The
convenor then select the three most popular locations and present it to the
QQ group, which picks a candidate to investigate. If no such school
exists, then the convenor would start again. This is how the errors
get corrected.

"Human flesh search engines" such as LEX are mostly between 23 to 25
years old with their own jobs. Apart from the entertainment value, the
biggest motivator for them is the MOP currency (namely, a virtual currency
used at the MOP forum).

Q: Suppose someone offered a huge amount of MOP currency to track down a
person. If during your search process, you discovered that the reason
was not as orignally stated. What would you do?
A: It depends on whether the person is offering the right price in my mind.
If the price is right, I will still help him.

Q: You say that this is what interests you. What is in there to
delight you?
A: I regard the "human flesh search" as a hobby. In the virtual world
of MOP, you get respected if you own a lot of MOP currency. This
respect is enough to satisfy my small vanity.

The reporter also learned that the MOP website is ready to post job
positions for "human flesh search engines," although the pay will come only
in the form of virtual MOP currency. But the employer is confident
that this organized "human flesh search engine team" will no longer engage
in either silly exercises or intrusions into privacy. The MOP
organizer said: "Many of the current searches are focused on searching for
pretty girls. I want to get everybody together to work on behalf of
public interest and track down some meaningful people." If everybody
sticks to the rules, the human flesh search engines will become purer.
But that will depend on people voluntarily sticking to the rules.

In 2006,
58,000, according to the Civil Human Rights Front
36,000, according to the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme
27,500, according to the Hong Kong University Statistics and Actuarial
Department

In 2007,
68,000 according to the Civil Human Rights Front
32,000 according to the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme
31,000 according to the Hong Kong University Statistics and Actuarial
Department

So what is your guess as to what the actual turnout in 2008? Is it
958,000? Or the 50,000 estimated by Civil Human Rights Front deputy
convenor Jackie Hung?

[018] Euro 2008 Draws
Attention In China (06/26/2008) (Tiexue)
Unfortunately, this current attraction has nothing to do with the sport of
soccer. It has everything to do to killing any possibility of even hinting
at a Free Tibet on the Chinese Internet.

[017] Isolated Islands
And Pirate Ships (06/26/2008) (莫谈国是)
This is a response by a netizen to Leung Man-tao's essay on Netizens And
Netfiriendsabout a
diametrically opposite imagery of the Chinese Internet.

Immersed in the sea of information on the Internet,
two things could happen. On one hand, our society becomes more open
due to the excitement of the multiplicity of information and we become more
tolerant, cautious and adept at analyzing complex information. On the
other hand, we select certain information that we like and this reinforces
our original positions; as a result, we become less tolerant about others
because we are more willing to use an established position to judge this
complex society.

Based upon my ten plus years of personal experience
on the Internet, both conditions exist and they can be frequently observed.
For the first condition, the Internet has permitted dissonant views to
communicate and left space for rational debate. We are able to
perceive the presence of a virtual public space. As for the second
condition, the Internet is the paradise for anonymous Internet mobsters to
roam free. "Ultimately, the open world breaks down into numerous
self-absorbed, self-enclosed sects." I want to say that both
situations hold. However, the first situation is more prevalent.

This happens because when these two bodies gather in
the same place, those who prefer a singular position will continue to
"react" and "mutually stimulate each other" in the same manner.
Meanwhile, those who prefer diversity will gradually grow tired of this
scene. Eventually, we will see some spaces turn from "discussion of
current affairs into fantasy paradises intent on conquering the world" and
some forums turn from "practicing rationality to wanting to toss all angry
young people into the ocean." "In any closed community, the extreme
voices will drive the community towards extreme positions, and voices of
moderation are to be eradicated." But Leung Man-tao may not know that
during this transition from moderation to extremism, diversity actually
obtained a greater victory. Such are the strengths and hopes of the
Internet.

Over the past decade or so, I have been through so
many BBS's ... As Leung Man-tao wrote, many of these forums eventually
folded into self-absorption and extremism. But that is just one view
of what happened. On the other side, I was able to meet many strangers
who share my sentiments. We were not willing to be folded into small
sects, and we would rather live in an environment that is free, open and
diverse. Therefore, we spread out to find other oases where we can
stay. Or as my friend Hecaitou wrote more poetically, we are a group
of wanderers drifting on the ocean looking for a suitable island to stay.
For more than ten years, this fleet has grown from nothing to something,
from small to large on the Internet. More recently, we have moved from
the Internet into the traditional media to articulate our voices that
represent freedom, openness and diversity. Today, the Chinese society
can no longer ignore our voices.

Whereas Leung Man-tou sees fallen islands one by one,
I see pirate ships that set off from these isolated islands. This
increasingly large fleet of ships is roaming the open sea. Whereas
Leung Man-tao sees these islands as cancerous cells chewing up the Internet
and ultimately killing off the public space, I see the freedom ships
spreading the concepts of freedom and openness on the sea. In the end,
the isolated islands will fall to these pirate ships. A free, open and
diverse space will fill up the world. Ultimate, people are curious and
want to learn more, so that a self-enclosed space cannot be the be-all,
end-all to everyone ...

The reason why there are divergent assessments is a
function of experience. My understanding is that Leung Man-tao is not
a veteran netizen and he lacks the experience of roaming on the sea as a
member of the grand fleet of pirate ships. If he is watching from the
shore, he will naturally see numerous isolated islands. But if he is
in the middle of the sea, he would be able to count the number of victories
of the million-strong fleet ...

Recently, Han Han and Chen Danqing appeared on a Hunan Satellite TV
program and made some astonishing remarks. They "lambasted" many
literary masters such as Lao She, Mao Dun and Ba Jin as "lousy writers" and
"Bing Xin was completely unreadable." This roused a storm. Some
people supported them, but more of the voices objected to them.

Han Han told yWeekend:

I think that this is most peculiar. I am only expression my
personal aesthetics and reading habits. How normal can this get?
Why am I guilty of such a big offense? I spoke as a critic that
their writing is not good. If they are upset, then it must mean that
they disagree with my viewpoint. Well, they can tell me what is so
good about the writings of Ba Jin, Mao Dun and Bing Xin. If I
disagree with them ... well ... we have different standards of aesthetics
and we agree to go our own separate ways. That is quite normal.
Or else they might say, "You stupid egg! You have lousy aesthetic
tastes." That is alright too. But instead they are now saying:
The Masters must not be criticized ... you are forgetting your own origins
... you have a flaw in your character ... you will be nailed on the Pole
of Shame in history ...

So if anyone who can't stand reading Bing Xin should be nailed on the
Pole of Shame in history. So in this world, if your personal
interests does not include the writings of certain athors, it is against
morality, it offends the people and it shows that you are uneducated.

Naturally, in my heart, I regard myself as a Master. Your Masters
are not necessarily my Masters. To my eyes, they are just writers,
or successful writers. Naturally I can decide for myself whether I
like to read their writings or not. This has nothing to do with the
morals of a person. If there is someone I consider a master, I can
still tell him: "Dear Master, I feel that I don't like this particular
part about what you wrote."

Q. Mr Ambassador, when did you first learn that the number of
Beijing citizens going to travel in France has decreased? And what was
your initial reaction?A: This matter really confounded me. I did not imagine this would
occur, and I don't understand it. On May 26, we heard some rumors that
certain tour agencies received orders from the government to boycott France.
We then discovered that the number of visa applications by Chinese citizens
has decreased dramatically. We were very concerned.
My initial reaction was that there was not way that such an order exists.
So I went to check it out immediately. I met with the State Tourism
Bureau director Sha Qiwei first and then I met with the Beijing Tourism
Bureau director Zhang Weiguang next. They both told me that the
tourism industry should progress normally because it is the bridge between
our two nations.

Q: So what do you believe?A: I don't know who is right. But clearly, the problem has not
been solved. I noticed that the Chinese government has been actively
speaking out, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs and other State
Tourism Bureau officials. They are all saying the same thing: "There
is no problem, and there should not be any problem." If certain
incidents that occurred in Paris caused some Chinese not to want to go to
France, then I respect their individual actions. They can do whatever
they want. But the problem is that the number of tourists going to
France has decreased.
There is another rumor that France is not issuing tourist visa right now.
That is inaccurate. We are issuing fewer visas now because we are
getting fewer applications. This is happening only in Beijing, because
the numbers have not changed in Guangzhou and Shanghai. But most
Chinese tourists going to France come from Beijing, so there is a big drop
in the overall number.

...

Q. Certain comments by French netizens have caused infelicity.
For example, some French people are saying if the Chinese don't come to
France, the Paris public transports will become quieter and there will be
less garbage on the streets ...A. To quote a Chinese saying: When the forest is big, there are
all kinds of birds. I personally regret some of the very silly
comments. I feel that the French Internet reaction is just as heated
as in China, where people say anything they want. But one should not
simply deduce that these comments represent the attitude of the entire
French people. The majority of French people are very friendly towards
China. I feel both countries need to have a constructive dialogue.
Both sides are ready to get beyond the problems over the past few months in
order to reach a mutually satisfactory solution.

Q2. Do you confident about the overall progress of Hong Kong over the
next 10 years?13.8%: No confidence
43.0%: Half-half
41.8%: Have confidence

Q3. Do you think the Central Government has carried out "one
country, two systems" since 1997?11.0%: Did not carry out
35.7%: Half-half
50.7%: Carried out

Q4. Has your opinion of the Central Government become worse, the same or
better since 1997? 4.8%: Worse
26.0%: The same
67.9%: Better

Q5. Since 2003, the Civil Human Rights Front organizes a July 1st march
each year. Will you be attending this year's July 1st march?83.2%: No
12.7%: Maybe
4.1%: Definitely

Q6. People who participate in the July 1st march have different reasons.
What is your main reason? (Base: Those who answered "Maybe" or "Definitely" to
Q5)37.4%: Fight for double universal suffrage/support democracy
22.3%: Monitor government/dissatisfaction with government policies and actions
16.5%: Dissatisfied with rising prices/demand prices be held down
13.7%: Dissatisfied with increasing rich/poor gap
7.2%: Other

[011] Taiwan By The
Numbers (06/25/2008) (TVBS)
(1,174 persons interviewed by telephone on June 20 and 23. The telephone
numbers were randomly selected from the telephone directory and the last four
digits were randomized.)

Q7. Do you think that the Ma Ying-jeou government has actively
investigated the various corruption cases that occurred during the term of
ex-President Chen Shui-bian?
21%: Yes
47%: No
31%: Don't know

Q9. Generally speaking, are you satisfied with how the Ma Ying-jeou
administration has handled the various corruption cases that occurred during
the term of ex-President Chen Shui-bian?
3%: Very satisfied
21%: Somewhat satisfied
33%:Somewhat dissatisfied
16%: Very dissatisfied
26%: No opinion

[010] The Mainland
Barbarians Invade Taiwan (06/25/2008) During his unsuccessful
presidential campaign, Democratic Progressive Party candidate Frank Hsieh had
this memorable campaign ad about the consequences of a One-China market -- the
hordes of mainland Chinese barbarians will invade Taiwan and urinate and spit in
public everywhere. Frank Hsieh lost that election and his predicted day is
about to arrive.

In response to a question, Tainan city Department of Health director Hu
Shu-chen said: "Every place that the mainland guests passes by will be
disinfected." A member of the delegation of mainland Chinese travel
representatives reacted to that statement by saying that they had already
gone through the disease control station at the airport and this is highly
unnecessary. He said that he has visited more than twenty countries
already and nobody does that. Neither Japan nor the United States does
that to any of the many mainland Chinese tourists, and there has never been
any outbreak of epidemics in those countries.

Later, Hu Shu-chen explained that the mainland tourists coming to Taiwan
have high socio-ecnoomic status and their health should be relatively
better. The Department of Health plans to disinfect the tourist sites
which mainland and other overseas tourists visit, and that would be good for
the tourists as well as the local people.

The pro-green media are questioning why the government is letting the
mainland tourists come without monitoring the infectious diseases.
This will place the people of Taiwan at risk from all sorts of deadly
viruses. They emphasized repeatedly that "there are 550 million people
with infectious tuberculosis in mainland China" and 130,000 people die from
it each year. Since "the mainland people spit everywhere they go,"
tuberculosis will be all over the place.

According to a village mayor in Tainan county, "citizens should report
immediately if they see a mainlander coughing."

According to a mainland woman who married to Taiwan, her husband's family
used to be very nice to her. But yesterday, her mother-in-law asked
her whether she had any infectious diseases before her marriage. "I
heard on the radio that the Taiwanese people have no resistnace against
certain types of diseases, so that they will die if they get infected."
The mainland woman said that she came to Taiwan several years ago and took
care of her father-in-law who had tuberculosis. She wasn't afraid of
being infected. But all of a sudden, the radio talk show has turned
suspicions on her.

The following print ad was for a hospital in Shenzhen. The words
say: "Visit The Dentist, Get A Nurse For Free." The netizen who first
posted the photo wrote: "This kind of advertisement leads men into letting
their fantasy run wild. But if a woman goes to visit the dentist, will
they have to offer a male dentist with high education and income in order to
close the sale? ... Such an advertisement nakedly uses the female bodies to
communicate. This totally demeans women by treating them in a
subordinate position where they have to please men in order to derive
commercial benefits." Another netizen wrote that the pretty nurses are
pleasant to look at, but the advertising slogan was disgusting.

According to the hospital which ran this advertisement, the purpose here
is induce the citizens of Shenzhen to pay more attention to their dental
health. The "free nurse" portion of the advertising slogan refers to
their program which assigns a nurse as a personal dental consultant to their
clients for free.

[008] Worst Book Of
2007 (06/25/2008) (ccw.com.cn)
Here is number nine on the list of the worst ten books published in China during
the year 2007.

<Lust, Caution: The lives of Eileen Chang and Hu Lancheng>

This book was selected for the list because of the most rotten packaging
of the year. Most people will only see the words <Lust, Caution> 《色,戒》
from a distance and failed to see the small print about "the lives of Eileen
Chang and Hu Lancheng. The book is also shrink-wrapped so that people
cannot peruse the contents at the bookstore. So if people bought the
book thinking that this was the Eileen Chang novela on which the Ang Lee
movie was based, they would have been cheated. This was worst than
buying a lousy book, because the experience is closer to a highway robbery.
The name of the author is Xia Shiqing (夏世清), which is suspected to be a
fictional name that was designed to mislead people into thinking that this
is Xia Zhiqing (夏志清), who is a friend of Eileen Chang and a famous
literature scholar.

Previously, Crown Publishing (Taiwan) had sued 12 mainland Chinese
publishers for copyright violations of the works of author Eileen Chang.
Yesterday, the Beijing Number Two Middle Court found Jiangsu Literature
Publishers guilty of copyright violation with respect to the book <Rumors
and Private Words>. The judgment was effective immediately and the
publisher is required to pay 200,000 RMB to Crown Publishing.

According to the plaintiff, they had obtained all publishing rights of
Eileen Chang from Stephen and Mae Fong Soong. Jiangsu Publishing had
published <Rumors and Private Words> which included 56 essays by Eileen
Chang without authorization. In addition, the plaintiff's lawyer had
purchased the copy of the book from Amazon.com, and this made the latter a
co-defendant. The court ordered Amazon.com to cease and desist selling
the said book. The defendants can appeal the verdict within the next
15 days.

According to the plaintiff's lawyer Wang Yun, this case was a somewhat
special case in the series of copyright lawsuits against twelve different
Chinese publishers. At first, Jiangsu Literature Publishers expressed
a desire to settle the case. While the two sides were negotiating, the
plaintiff found out that Jiangsu Literature Publishers had made another
print run of the book. Therefore, the plaintiff went to court.

The reporter found out that Amazon.com is no longer selling this book.
However, this book can still be purchased at other websites.

Legislators engaged in physical and verbal clashes during the
legislature’s Diplomacy and National Defense Committee meeting yesterday as
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators continued their criticism of
Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou.

Ou was to make his first appearance at the legislature, where, according to
the agenda, he was to unveil policy plans.

But DPP legislators blocked Ou from making his presentation, while
criticizing him for once having permanent resident status in the US and for
failings in handling the Diaoyutai incident earlier this month.

...

As DPP legislators continued to denounce Ou and blocked him from reaching
the podium, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator John Chiang made a
motion to end the meeting, which was quickly passed as the KMT holds a
majority in the committee. DPP lawmakers then attempted to stop Ou
from leaving the meeting. “Ou, step down!” “You’re a runaway
minister!” and “Get out and never come back!” DPP legislators shouted as
they surrounded Ou. KMT legislators eventually came to Ou’s rescue and
escorted him out of the building with help from legislative police officers.

The DPP caucus later continued its condemnation of Ou at a press conference
and asked him to apologize and step down. “We hereby ask the KMT and
Ou to apologize to the public and that Ou step down,” DPP legislative caucus
whip William Lai said.

What is payback? Just watch how the Democratic Progressive Party
legislators took care of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Francisco Ou
was denounced loudly and then jostled into leaving the scene. This is
very similar to the government officials of the Chen Shui-bian
administration being taken care of by the Kuomintang legislators. This
is also very similar to when the Kuomintang was the ruling party and the
opposition (later to become the Democratic Progressive Party) legislators
dealt with government officials in the same way.

In our country, it is about paybacks even as valuable time is slipping
away from the hands of the legislators. In the end, the people who
suffer the most are the people and not the easy-living legislators.

... More than 10 years of democratization still hasn't made the
legislative and executive branches come up with a formal model of
interaction. All they have learned is the payback through lowly
hooligan tactics that desecrated the lofty democratic parliament.

Legislators are not gangsters. They should not indulge in eye for
eye, tooth for tooth revenge. Legislators represent the will of the
people. They are not hooligans and thugs. They are supposed to
be arguing over state policies, as opposed to fighting over turf, money or
women. There is no need to look fierce and seek payback at every turn.
Just look at what happens in the parliaments of democratic countries: they
speak mildly, they have class, they argue clearly and they don't emote.
Taiwan legislators, try to learn something!

According to reports, a certain guest at the Taiwan television program <Kongxi
Is Coming> wore pajamas that carried the Free Tibet flag.
Patriotic Chinese young people spotted the pajamas and are calling for a
boycott of the program. The young female guest said that the clothing
belonged to her ex-boyfriend and she had no idea what they meant. She
only found out now that there was a religious meaning. I believe her.
But never mind her as an entertainer, because I am someone who keeps up with
current affairs and even I am unable to react instantaneously upon seeing
the snow mountain lion.

But that is not the issue. Rather, the important thing is that the
ban is being advocated by certain patriotic young people. I rarely
watch television and I have no idea where this program was being shown.
Afterwards, I checked all the television channels that I can receive and I
did not find this program. I got on the Internet and then I found out
that this was a Taiwan variety show which has not received permission to be
shown in mainland China.

Now things are getting interesting. Once upon a time, there was a
crime known as "listening to enemy radio station." Younger people
probably do not know about that. At that time, the imperialists and
the oppositionists wanted to erode the spirit of the great Chinese people.
Of course, they can't show up as teachers in our classrooms. So they
used high technology to use radio broadcasts to disrupt our socialist
construction. But our Party was wise and brilliant, and they created a
crime known as "listening to enemy radio station" for those people whose
wills were too weak. This effectively stopped the behavior.
While technological means such as jamming were used, nothing was more
intimidating than direct criminalization.

Later on, that particular crime was no longer mentioned by anyone
anymore. I am not a legal expert and I don't know if this crime has
been removed from the books. It is a good thing that it is not used
anymore because those patriotic viewers who are demanding the banning of the
program would have to interrogated by the Party: How come you were watching
it?

Actually it does not matter if this crime was removed. We have many
television channels that we can watch, but all of them have been approved by
the authorities. However, the Internet is so well-developed today that
we can no longer ban access to television channels outside of the mainland.
For the relevant departments, these television channels had not been
approved to be shown. Therefore, if you watch it, you are doing so
surreptitiously.

That is why this is interesting: The patriotic young people want this
program banned. But the program is currently being banned by the wise
and strong relevant department. It does not matter whether it is
banned now. Either way, you cannot watch it. If you are watching
it now, you are breaking the law!

Isn't this insane? A television program depends on advertisements
to survive. Advertisements assumes that there is an audience out
there. Since this program is not allowed to be shown on mainland
television, the advertisers do not regard the mainland viewers as a target
audience. So who cares whether you ban it or not? Nobody is
forcing you to watch it. Rather, you are the one who wants to download
every episode from the Internet.

At a moment like this, I have to say that certain patriotic young people
serve no purpose apart from handing labels out.

[004] In A Disaster,
What Do I Ask? (06/23/2008) (yWeekend)
(Note: Chen Xiaonan is a Phoenix TV program hostess)

yWeekend: You have a post titled "What Do I Ask?" on your blog. That
essay has reverberated among reporters. Faced with an unexpected
disaster, each reporter has his/her own set of reactions and methods.
There doesn't seem to be any set standards?

Chen: My personal experience was that I had arrived at the earthquake
scene, and news was happening everywhere. The rescuers and victims were
all in an abnormal state. A careless remark from a reporter would
trigger off the darkest memories in their lives.

When I first arrived in Beichuan, a group of small children were playing in
a large hall. They seemed to be smiling and they were happy to be
interviewed by me. I asked two children about what happened to them when
the earthquake hit. The boy who was in middle school got out, but his
best friend did not make it. He turned his head around and see his best
friend trapped on the leg by a big concrete slab. I patted his shoulder
and said: "I am really sorry. I really should not have let you recall
this sort of thing." The boy shook his head in comprehension. This
interview made me very uneasy. There was another group of little girls
who said proudly to me: "We are in the same class. We are all good
friends." When I asked them what happened, one little girl wiped her
simile away and told me that there was a little boy behind her when the
earthquake hit. Both got trapped underneath the rubble. Since her
injuries were less serious, the rescuers retrieved her first. Then the
boy stopped breathing. She said that it was her fault that the boy died.
I grabbed her hand and said: "Don't think too much. It was not your
fault." I could only use very inadequate words to comfort her
repeatedly, and I don't know if they were effective.

yWeekend: Concerning this point, there is a lot of debate on the
Internet. Many people feel that some of the questions from the reporters
caused more damage to the disaster victims. Some of the victims refused
to be interviewed.

Chen: At that moment, the disaster victim does not need a reporter to ask
how he feels unless he wants some help. He needs someone who can talk to
him in a human-to-human fashion. Why should he retell his experience to
the reporter? ...

yWeekend: You want to get the raw materials and you also want to forget
that you are a reporter. Does this sometimes create a conflict?

Chen: There is no conflict. When a reporter acts as a normal person
to communicate with the subject, the results may be the most truthful.
When we did the episode <One Night At The Plaza> I wanted to add some
comments. As I was about to begin, a group of women carrying large
packages on their backs and holding thermos bottles in their hands came over
to tell me that they intend to go home by traversing the mountain. I
asked them how far it was. They said that they didn't know because they
have never done it before. By this time, I found out that they had not
eaten for days. So I told them: "Let me make you something to eat.
How many people are you?" The women said: "Seventy." I was stunned
and I gave a silly smile. This scene was recorded on camera. It
was very real. This film was later shown in one long scene without any
cuts. My friend saw the episode and told me: "You were really into it."
At that moment, I was both a recorder as well as a participant at the scene
...

Four staff members of the Taichung
branch of Gwo Hwa Detective Co., Ltd. were released yesterday afternoon on
bail after being interrogated over their alleged practice of secretly
videotaping intimate behavior of a Taichung city government official during
a drinking session with a couple of women in mainland China, according to
the Taichung District Prosecutors. [...]

The four were bailed out after confessing to the alleged illegal practice
of secretly videotaping intimate behavior of Huang Chin-hsiao, director of
the Economic Development Department under the Taichung City Government.

They told prosecutors that they were commissioned to do the job by a
company client, and prosecutors are likely to question the client to better
understand the truth of the whole story.

Prosecutors and investigators raided the Taichung branch office of Gwo
Hwa Detective Co. on Friday, confiscating relevant account books and
information. The action came after Huang sued the detective company for
offending his privacy.

Huang recently took a blow at the Taichung City Council when apologizing
for having a drinking session with a couple of women at a karaoke parlor
during a trip to China in May. The videotapes showing Huang
drinking with the women, including some allegedly intimate behavior, have
been distributed to local TV channels by unknown individuals.

Huang said he was set up because two women took the initiative to
approach him at the Fuzhou Airport in China's southern Fujian Province in a
casual encounter during a stopover last month. The women had actually
followed him around all along the trip. Sources alleged that the whole
affair could have been staged by the owner of a construction company after
some of the realty development projects were allegedly blocked by Huang.
The two women were identified as Chen Hsiu-ching and Lee Man-shih, two
senior employees of the Taichung branch of the Gwo Hwa Detective Co.

In April this year, a man around 50 years old approached the Gwo Hwa
Detective Company to ask for secret videotaping of Huang Chin-hsiao. A
deposit of NT$500,000 was paid with another NT$680,000 due upon delivery.
The script was supposed to be in three parts: Huang patronizing places of
ill-repute; Huang seeking out girls to drink; and Huang cavorting in the
hotel room.

Chen Hsiu-ching and Lee Man-shih were dispatched to carry out the
mission. They found out that Huang was not interested in entertainment
venues, so they had to proceed immediately to Part II. On May 22, the
two women hired a mainland girl named Xiao Yu for 4,000 RMB to seduce Huang
in a KTV. During that time, a man named Ah Jie was secreting taping.
Chen and Lee claimed that Huang really got into it.

The videotape was delivered to the patron. Later on, television
stations received the videotape. The detective agency said that it did
not deliver any videotapes to the television stations.

After the KTV session, the two women along with Xiao Yu took Huang and
another Taichung city government official back to their hotel room to
continue. Lee had intended to use the pinhole camera inside her
handbag to complete Part III of the script. Unfortunately, the camera
malfunctioned. Chen and Lee did not explain what the five people did
in the hotel room. Huang's version was that the group dispersed after
the KTV session.

Who is the patron? Unconfirmed reports point to a certain
construction company. Conversely, this could be a competitor of that
construction company out to create the impression of misdeed.

[002] Why Do Little
People Want To Become Heroes? (06/22/2008) (Leung Man-tao at
Southern Weekend)

...

Once upon a time, the principal guiding ideology in China included a
noble ideal filled with lofty goals, morals and passions. Everybody
wanted to imitate Comrade Lei Feng's 'everything for everyone and nothing
for oneself' spirit. But by the the 1990's, those heroic legends have
become the butts of jokes, and the lofty noble values became empty talk.
Many people began to think that the true heroes are those people who are
courageous enough to admit that they are petty, selfish and even rascally.
After twenty years of anti-nobility and anti-heroism, have we finally
stepped out of the yokels? Or have we fallen into trap of the same
logic in the opposite direction?

Sichuan province Dujiangyan city Guangya School teacher Fan Meizhong
admitted on his blog that on the day of the earthquake, he abandoned his
students and ran first out of the classroom. He drew heaps of abuse on
the Internet. But even as most people condemned him, others defended
him because he has the freedom of speech as well as the right to be selfish.
Interestingly, this debate has unwittingly evolved into a debate of
nobility/anti-nobility and heroism/anti-heroism. Fan Meizhong then
lifted the debate up to the level of liberalism/anti-liberalism and
proclaimed himself to be a representative of 'liberalism.'

In my humble opinion, there is no variant of liberalism that would
deny a person the right to flee for his life. But there does not
seem to be any theory that declares that a person must abandon his
students and family in order to save himself. Sacrificing one's life
to save others is a noble act. In any culture and any theory of
ethics, this is an admirable act.

Fan Meizhong graduated from the Department of History at Peking
University and he voluntarily went to teach in a small local school.
He frequently wrote essays to explore the shortcomings of the educational
system and he tried to put his own ideas into practice. His flight was
a moment of weakness when the human instinct to survive took over.
While this may not fit his former ideal image, he did not deserve the stern
admonitions and tough abuses. After all, not everyone can be a hero
and that is the reason why people respect heroes. Yet, even as we
sympathize with his frailties and even defend them, we do not admire his
actions. We definitely do not think that everybody should be doing
what he did. Fan Meizhong is truly an ordinary person, no more and no
less, neither evil nor noble. So why are people regarding him as an
esteemed person? And why is he presenting himself as defending what he
understands as 'liberalism' like a human rights defender?

Thus, we see that in spite of more than twenty years of
anti-nobility/anti-heroism, many people still have not escape the logic.
Whether you want to be a hero or an anti-hero, you always connect with a
bunch of grand narratives so that you become the embodiment of all sorts of
grand theories. The traditional hero is supposed came in superhuman
dimensions. The contemporary anti-hero emphasizes on the authenticity
of a genuinely petty person, as if selfishness and weakness are not just
common but they are quintessential. Over the past three yeas, the
authentic petty person has become an attractive personality type. A
person can talk nonsense and misbehave, but everything is acceptable as long
as he is authentic. Thus, authenticity has become the highest and
unsurpassed value.

We had tried to avoid excessive nobility in order to restore the original
face of humanity. When we recognize the cowardice and lowliness of
human nature, we will learn tolerance, sorrow and anger. After that,
we can search for improvement and perfection of individual morality on a
realistic basis. We never wanted to head in the opposite direction by
declaring that cowardice and lowliness are our ideals. At a time when
all of China are praising the heroes, Teacher Fan should not have drawn so
much anger. Instead, he allowed us to appreciate the extraordinary
greatness of our heroes. Conversely, there was no reason for Teacher
Fan to use liberalism or whatever to excuse his own instinctive reaction
during the earthquake. Either this was an attempt to reinforce his
image as an advocate of liberalism, or this was another kind of impetuous
action to become a hero (and/or anti-hero). Besides, liberalism may be
premised upon human flaws, but it does not treat those flaws as the ultimate
goals for humanity.

[001] The Most
Embarrassing Signs At The City People's Congress Office (06/22/2008)
(Tianya)